After the showbread table is the lampstand (Exo. 40: 24-25), where we experience Christ as the shining light of life (John 1:4; 8:12). That the experience of the lampstand follows the experience of the showbread table indicates that the light comes out of our enjoyment of Christ as our life supply. When we enjoy Christ as our food, we have light because the “life is the light of men” (John 1:4). This light does not come from knowledge but from the life we enjoy.
While the showbread table has twelve loaves of bread, the lampstand has seven lamps. Seven is also a number of completion, but it is not the number of eternal completion. It is the number of completion in God’s dispensational move, denoting a completion in God’s movement. For eternity we shall have the life supply, but the purpose of the lampstand is to enable God’s people to move and act in the dark age. It is for God’s dispensational move. In His economy and dispensation, God has His movement and action, which need the shining of the divine light. This shining is complete. Without the shining of the light we cannot move or do anything in God’s economy. As we enjoy Christ as our life, this life becomes the light by which we move and act in God’s economy. Our experience proves this. Firstly, we enjoy Christ as life and as the life supply. Then this life shines within us, and we know how to move and act. This is the experience of Christ as light inwardly.
The last item of furniture in the Holy Place is the golden altar, which is the incense altar. The incense altar, lampstand, and showbread table form a triangle. The showbread table was on the north, the lampstand on the south, and the incense altar between them on the west, very close to the separating veil. At the incense altar we share in Christ as the sweet incense toward God for our acceptance by God (Eph. 1:6). God accepts us because of Christ, not because of what we are. This is why we must pray to God in the name of Christ. If we pray in, by, and with ourselves, our prayer will never be accepted. Christ as the acceptable, sweet incense must be added to our prayer. Our prayer is like a censer, and Christ is like the fragrant incense that is put into the censer. When we pray in and with Christ, Christ as incense is mingled with our prayer as it ascends to God. This incense becomes the element that makes our being and our prayer acceptable to God. This experience is more inward, leading to the most inward experiences in the Holy of Holies.
Although the incense altar is not in the Holy of Holies, it directs and leads us into the Holy of Holies. It is in the Holy Place, but its function is for the Holy of Holies. Hence, it is more inward than both the showbread table and the lampstand.
Regarding the standing place of the incense altar, there is apparently a discrepancy between the mentioning of it in the Old Testament and its mention in the New Testament. Exodus 30:6 says that the incense altar is put “before the veil,” that is, outside the veil. This indicates clearly that the incense altar is put in the Holy Place, which is outside the veil, not in the Holy of Holies, which is within the veil. But Hebrews 9:4 says that the Holy of Holies has the incense altar. Therefore, most Christian teachers and Bible readers have thought that some error or misconstruction should somehow have occurred. When I was expounding the book of Hebrews to a group of believers in 1937, I also was troubled by this matter and thought that a mistake or misconstruction had taken place. I consulted a number of books, including one which says that verse 4 does not refer to the incense altar but to the incense censer. It says that in the early days the incense censer was always put outside the veil but that it gradually slipped into the Holy of Holies. This book has some ground for its interpretation because the Greek word for altar in verse 4 may also be translated as censer. But here it must refer to the incense altar, not to the censer, because according to the record of the Old Testament, there was no incense censer in the Holy Place or in the Holy of Holies. Recently, as I was writing the notes for the Recovery Version of Hebrews, the Lord gave me a clear and complete revelation regarding this matter. There is no error or misconstruction in verse 4. The apparent discrepancy has a very spiritual significance according to the following points:
The Old Testament record of the incense altar’s standing place implies the closest relation of the incense altar to the ark of testimony, over which is the propitiation-cover, where God meets His people. According to the Hebrew, Exodus 30:6 says, “Thou shalt put it [the incense altar] before the veil that is over the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with thee.” We must be very careful in reading this verse. The incense altar was put before the veil that is “over the ark of the testimony.” The King James Version says “by the ark,” but the proper translation must be “over the ark.” The preposition used here makes a great difference. The preposition “by” means that the veil is separating the ark from the incense altar, whereas the preposition “over” means that the veil is not separating but simply covering the ark. The veil did not separate the incense altar from the ark; it covered the ark. Therefore, putting the incense altar before the veil was the same as putting it before the ark. Exodus 40:5 even says that the incense altar is set “before the ark of the testimony” without mentioning the separating veil that stands between them. Thus, the incense altar was before the ark. According to God’s economy, the covering veil was not to exist for eternity; it was to be removed. When the Lord Jesus was crucified on the cross, this veil was taken away. According to God’s eternal economy, the veil should no longer be there. In a sense, it was there not as a separating veil but as a covering veil. It was not counted, because it was destined to be taken away. When the veil is removed, the incense altar is in front of the ark. When the book of Hebrews was written, the veil was gone. There was no veil in the eyes of God. Moreover, in Revelation 8:3 we see that the golden altar is before the throne of God. There is no separating veil. Thus, even in Exodus 40:3 and 21 the veil was, in the eyes of God, a covering veil, not a separating veil. It simply covered the ark temporarily, not eternally.
First Kings 6:22 (ASV) says that the incense “altar... belonged to the oracle.” “Oracle” here means the “speaking place” of God, denoting the Holy of Holies, in which was the ark of testimony with the propitiation-cover, where God spoke to His people. Thus, the Old Testament indicated already that the incense altar belonged to the Holy of Holies. (Though it was in the Holy Place, its function was for the ark of testimony in the Holy of Holies. On the day of atonement, both the incense altar and the propitiation-cover of the ark of testimony were sprinkled with the same blood for atonement—Exo. 30:10; Lev. 16:15-16.) Hence, in Exodus 26:35, only the showbread table and the lampstand are mentioned as being in the Holy Place, not the incense altar.
The incense altar is related to prayer (Luke 1:10-11), and in Hebrews we are shown that to pray is to enter the Holy of Holies (10:19) and to come to the throne of grace, which is signified by the propitiation-cover over the ark of testimony in the Holy of Holies. Our prayer often begins with our mind, which is a part of our soul, signified by the Holy Place. But our prayer always ushers us into our spirit, signified by the Holy of Holies.
Due to all these points, the writer of this book had to reckon that the incense altar belongs to the Holy of Holies. Verse 4 does not say that a golden altar is in the Holy of Holies, as the lampstand and the table are in the Holy Place, but that the Holy of Holies has a golden altar, since it belongs to the Holy of Holies. This concept fits the whole emphasis of the book of Hebrews which is that we should press on from the soul (signified by the Holy Place) to the spirit (signified by the Holy of Holies).
The incense altar belongs to the oracle—the speaking place of God, that is, the Holy of Holies. The incense altar typifies Christ in His resurrection as the sweet and fragrant incense in which God extends His well-pleasing acceptance to us. We pray with such a Christ to contact God that God may be pleased to speak to us. We speak to God in our prayer with Christ as the sweet incense, and God speaks to us in the sweet savor of this incense. This is the dialogue in the sweet fellowship between us and God through Christ as the sweet incense.
Now we can understand this apparent discrepancy. As we have seen, there is actually no discrepancy at all. According to the Old Testament, the incense altar belongs to the Holy of Holies. Although it is in the Holy Place, it does not belong to the Holy Place but to the Holy of Holies. Thus, Hebrews says that the Holy of Holies has the incense altar, not that the incense altar is in the Holy of Holies. As we experience the incense altar in our prayer, we often begin with our mind and are ushered into the spirit. Now it is easy for us to be ushered into the spirit because the veil has already been taken away.